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Time to leave the European Court for Criminal Privileges

We were all supposed to celebrate the triumph of Home Secretary Theresa May in seeing the odious Abu Qatada leave our country to face trial in Jordan after years of making a mockery of successive Home Secretaries and being an upmarket luncheon voucher for expensive lawyers. Mrs May no more beat the lawyers and the judges than any of her predecesors. Qatada left without pursuing the further rounds of appeals open to him on this legal merry-go-round, so my celebrations were rather muted. Indeed I am waiting to see how many more of his ilk are now to be given the boot in short order before I become over-excited.

However, the news last Friday that the senior immigration judge, Nathan Goldstein, had allowed Derrick Kinsasi, a Congolese burglar and thief, to stay here did catch my attention. The judge, it seems, accepted Kinsasi's plea that he had no family in the Congo and that he “had a good life here” so would like to stay. Indeed, the Judge said that sending him back home had “echoes of exile”.

In short Kinsasi’s “human right” to be here in our country and, I presume, continue in his chosen profession, overrides our right to be free of a nasty foreign criminal.

There are, however, few judicial outrages committed here that are not trumped by those committed by that kangaroo court the ECHR, which is long overdue to be renamed the European Court for Criminal Privileges. It's declaration this week that we have no right here in our country to lock up even the most despicable criminals for life without any prospect of premature release is not an interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is an invention of a law which does not exist.

When the UK signed the Convention 60 years ago we still enforced the law of capital punishment. There was no requirement for that law to be repealed. Then when it was repealed the country was told that murderers would be sentenced to life imprisonment. Again there was not a squeak from the ECHR to say that was unlawful. Now we are told that it is. So just when did it become so?

Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, spoke of his “determination to curtail the role” of the court in the UK. That of course is not really possible. Even if the court did agree that its role was curtailed it could simply invent a new law to say that it had not been. There is only one way forward. First Mr Grayling should tell the ECHR that the UK will ignore its ruling. Then he should set out to repeal Blair's Human Rights Act, then to renounce our membership of the European Convention.

That might of course precipitate a crisis over our membership of the European Union. Well, ça va, as they say. It might save us a lot of trouble.

…

There was not much doubt that the great majority of you agreed that we would be wise not to arm the Syrian rebels against the Assad government in what now looks like a civil war, let alone in Egypt where the Arab Spring grows more like a long bitter winter for the supporters of democratic politics. Only a few including alba and zedeyejie supported the rebels. Some of the antiinterventionists were just that, being opposed to our intervention in overseas conflicts; others like peta and Syrianlancer pointed out that Christians and other minorites had been safe under Assad but were suffering severely at the hands of the rebels. Then gastank and others questioned whether Islam and democracy are compatible, or as oggy suggested that the world of Islam is simply not yet ready for it.

However, son of cassandra reminded us that Christendom suffered the religous wars between Protestants and Catholics only 400 years ago. I think Nigel Lawson summed that up rather well in The Lords last week when he observed that we made slow progress towards democracy in this country, saying that “We went through having, first, freedom and the rule of law, then constitutional government and then democracy. Democracy was the ice on the cake,” adding that “there is not much point in having the icing if you do not have the cake”.

Perhaps marplot had it about right in saying that we cannot say what is best for Egypt but we can say what is best for us, and by a wide margin readers of this blog seem to feel that that is to stay out of these tangles.

Bersher shrewdly observed that just because Assad has the support of Russia it does not mean that we should support his enemies. Then I think that I should explain to mike palmer and one or too others who thought that I was being too generous in saying that events “had not turned out too badly in Libya” that I was judging by African and Libyan standards rather than those of the West.

Finally on this whole matter I suppose we might question just how deeply democracy is entrenched in Europe as we contemplate the manner in which affairs are conducted in Brussels and particularly in the eurozone.

Like dacorum and others, I found the attitude of Mr Bishi hard to take. Perhaps he takes his cue from Our Masters in Brussels. However he does nothing for his argument by dismissing all those who disagree with him as idiots. That is a foolish way to counter the arguments put forward not least by Professor Tim Congdon in his latest newsletter, which is available on the internet. Indeed it would be better for Mr Bishi if he entered a long period of silent contemplation. The same might help Oliver Biscuit, who should understand that his abuse of pretty polly for her perfectly reasonable and widely held view that we have had more immigration into this country than is good for us does little for his arguments, as stedman_ dantes and roseman agreed.

On that subject I should say that the claim that there was a shortage of labour in this country just after the war which was filled only by West Indian immigration is a nonsense. There never was a shortage of labour. There was widespread overmanning, which was made worse by nationalisation. That was not overcome until trades union law was reformed in the 1980s but has now resurfaced in the public sector with Blair's vote-buying in his time in office

I was asked by OneTermDave, who did two terms in Afghanistan, and captainbadger whether I rated the Vampire or the Meteor the better aircraft. The Vampire was a joy to fly and being very small offered a small target. It lacked power, however, the speed brakes were not that good and it had a vicous high-speed stall which killed the C.O. of my squadron in a low-level air race. The Meteor was far heavier, faster with a higher critical mach number, better acceleration and could approach 500knots airspeed at low level on a good day. Later versions were equipped with ejector seats which the Vampire lacked. It was also strongly built. Indeed both my number two and I survived a mid air collision and landed home safely. I guess therefore that as a fighting machine it has to be the Meteor, but for fun, the Vampire.

Lastly my thanks to all those who sent good wishes to my wife, which both she and I greatly appreciate.